Where's Wallace!?

I don't make distinctions like that, just realizing that they were both premiering on the same night? What is this, my birthday?

According to Salon (in an article written by our old friend Sonia Saraya, no less), Kumail Nanjiani had a recurring role on BBT, so the shows are wedded.

GoochExtension, Peter Gregory is dead…

Mance in the books goes out like a punk because Rattleshirt is a punk. Tormund wouldn't go out like that.

It's quite possible that he'll still show up to kidnap Tyrion at an inconvenient moment…

Across the Narrow Sea is equivalent to Europe. Westeros is equivalent to the UK, the Wall is equivalent to Hadrian's Wall, so beyond the wall is Scotland

There was no lack of fanservice in that episode… nng!

yaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwn

Yeah, I remembered the woman was already in the Zinaida operation, just too late not to get faked out. I did not remember WILLOW at all, though, so thank you for the reminder! So much stuff to keep straight on this show…

There have been quite a few unmarked spoilers in the above discussion (Balon Greyjoy, etc.). I don't mind personally as I've read all the books, but it's the kind of thing that would have pissed me off royally while I was still working my way through them…

Another parallel between Maurice and Pastor Tim…

Like Pastor Tim, Maurice has figured out just enough to be dangerous but not enough to realize what kind of fire he's playing with

That's exactly what I thought was going on. Cool! Good to know my intuition is on point…

When he told them that he was bringing them in on a new
project, was I the only one faked out into thinking for a moment that
he was about to tell Oleg about Zinaida? I got all excited. It made the reveal that he was
just foisting useless mail robot transcripts onto them all the more
funny.

Set them up! Suggest a nice game of chess…

Maurice is no dummy. He's either conned somebody before, or known somebody who did it.

Maurice just exudes violence from every pore. The actor does a great job of suggesting how dangerous he is through body language alone. We don't need to be told this guy is abusive, we can see it in every fiber of his physicality.

that was my take too

Philip was promised that Martha wouldn't have to change the tapes any more… my current theory is the Russian defector with the barely pronounceable name, but there could be a third spy in FBI HQ. Doesn't make the FBI look very good, does it?